Goldings 5 Knobs 1 - Report by Twiggy

What a cock up all round! On Saturday night after emailing and texting everybody and putting the team up on the blog, I assumed that we would have 13 players. By Sunday morning this had turned into 9 and a half. Apologies to Jamie and Joel – it would appear that the “up-to-date” list of players’ emails and telephone numbers didn’t have you on it after all. I did wonder why james-buck@sky.com failed to reply to the two emails I sent him asking whether he was going direct – not surprising because he wasn’t you in the first place! All this and I had refused two players a game as well, thinking that 13 would be sufficient, not knowing that Crossers would cry off after his funny turn at the Olympics Park on Saturday, apparently the effort involved after being asked to say “Bonjour” in English proved all too great.

And so it was with the rest of the ten who started on Sunday. We could easily have beaten Goldings with any eleven of our players and probably could have done the same with ten if we had approached the game with something akin to a positive attitude.

Right from the start it became clear that it wasn’t our day when Bully missed a penalty in the opening minutes after Richard had been scythed down in the area. Bully was clearly out of breath at that point and despatched the kick limply and wide, not at all with his usual aplomb.

During the first half we played some excellent football with Chris W, Phil, John , Darren and Bully linking up well in spells. Golding’s efforts were poor given our one-man deficit, which eventually told when a long looping cross was volleyed in at the far post. Chris W responded for us but after another fluky deflected attempt from Goldings went in we retired for our half-time talk 2-1 down.

Chris G seized the moment and decided that he would like to make changes….but then realised this might be made more difficult by the -1 on the subs bench.
We were still in it though, and had several good chances before conceding again. The floodgates then opened when Phil had to retire half way through the second half to fulfil family commitments, a goal and disputed penalty ensued, end result 5-1.

ChrisG, Bill and I made it up to the Golden Griffin in an attempt to eat 11players’ sandwiches, sausage rolls and pork pies.
Tellingly, the oppo enquired as to why Bully had his arse in his hand all match – can’t imagine why?

Sack the management I say!